expression and condemning the iranian regime for its crackdown on legitimate protest. on thursday, legislation to reauthorize provisions of the foreign intelligence surveillance act that is set to expire on january 19. it is also the deadline for current government funding to run out. the senate is back tomorrow at 3:00 eastern to debate the nomination of william campbell to be a u.s. district judge. the vote to advance the nomination will occur at 5:30. the rest of the week, the senate will consider other judicial nominations for u.s. district courts in tennessee, georgia and texas. as always you can watch the house live on c-span and the senate live on c-span2. host: joining us on the phone is sarah westwood. congress returns this week. let me begin with this photograph from camp david of

the president and the speaker of the house paul ryan in the senate republican leader mitch mcconnell. what can out of this meeting as best you can tell and what is the agenda moving ahead for congressional republicans? guest: there is a lot of what there about will be in weather won't be. thing you want to tackle out of the gate in 2018. we know paul ryan has been focused on welfare reform, specifically going after flaws in the medicare program. something president trump said he did on what to do ever. he would not touch that program. mitch mcconnell has been more focused on preserving the public majority in 2018 against a potential -- some of these are competing priorities and the republicans thought they needed to have a summit at camp david to sit down and decide which way

they are going to focus on in 2018. host: this back-and-forth between paul ryan and mitch mcconnell on the issue of entitlements, that seemed to be part two of what paul ryan wanted to do after the tax bill. who do you think is going to win that legislative battle? the senate leader? st: the leader is against going after medicare. he knows any sort of entitlement reform require at least 60 votes in the senate. that's a tall order given the fact republicans haven't even slimmer majority now the doug jones has been seated. it's an unforgiving margin for republicans to go after welfare reform. speaker ryan is sort of on his own interns of pursuing that during an election year. he said his conversations with trump have yielded progress.

it is entirely possible that some point this is something trump could get behind. post: we are talking with sarah westwood, reporter for the washington examiner. the border wall must be part of the agreement on daca. will democrats go along with that? democrat said building the wall is a nonstarter. ever since immigration started to become a topic of conversation they said to have zero interest in any sort of policy that includes funding for the wall. there may be more funding for border security, something they hinted they could get on board with. they have been looking at the program's the president trump has spoken about like the visa lottery program. that is something the democrats could get behind, but it is difficult to see any single democrat coming out in favor of the wall given the wall is not

universally supported in the republican party. your piece points out the president is making references on infrastructure, saying that's an area where both parties can find an agreement. keeping in mind the tax bill me less federal dollars and the president talking about a $200 billion to $400 billion investment in infrastructure. will there be an area of compromise on that? guest: that was the conventional wisdom at the beginning of 2017, infrastructure was potentially the only area are republicans and democrats could come together. asre were a lot of questions tax reform was facing difficulty about why they did not start off with infrastructure to grease the wheels for other legislative items while there was so much vitriol surrounding the legislative process. we are heading into an election year. it is difficult to see democrats

coming on board with any policies that can be perceived as a legislative victory for president trump, even one like infrastructure. i don't know there are a ton of options for how this can get done in 2018, but it is something the trump administration will be pushing more aggressively than any other policy. host: sarah westwood for the washington examiner, thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. morning, alexay bolton and jason dick discussed the week ahead. jared walczak talks about new limits to state and local deductions for federal income taxes. washingtonn's journal live at 7 a.m. eastern -- 7:00 a.m. eastern monday morning. join the discussion. >> monday night on the

communicators, we are at bell labs in new jersey for the first in a two-part interview series. bell labs is one of the premier communications research facilities in the world, providing work in radio astronomy, lasers and information theory. the lapse president discusses what is new in communications technology and research. >> we presented a ton of data, but not necessarily knowledge. era we will connect everything. your environment, you, infrastructure, buildings, bridges, cities. we have to seek what is going on and then automate that. your house will be like the jetsons. it will automatically clean for you. energy will be managed for you. your car will be driven for you. that will change that you build networks. it has to move the cloud into the network to make that work. the network will become valued

again. the devices will be everywhere, on you, and you, your car, infrastructure. that's a big change coming. i think we will see a big change in productivity. >> watch the communicators on c-span 2. >> here on c-span, newsmakers his neck with democratic senator chris van hollen of maryland. then a look at the relationship between the press and the presidency. that is followed by president trump and republican leaders holding a news conference at camp david to talk about the congressional agenda. at 8:00, our conversation with heinrich meyer on cue and day. -- q&a. greta: this week on "newsmakers," congressman chris hollen, democrat from maryland and i want to you thank you for being here. we have kevin robillard who is with "politico" and sean sullivan with "the washington post."